Past Films

Selma (Drury Humanities)

Dr. Richard Shurr will lead a post show discussion of the film.
Great insights to great films courtesy of Drury’s Humanities faculty.

In 1965, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (David Oyelowo) leads a dangerous campaign to secure equal voting rights in the face of violent opposition. The march from Selma to Montgomery culminates in President Johnson (Tom Wilkinson) signing the Voting Rights Act of 1965, one of the most significant victories for the civil rights movement.

"Intelligently written, vividly shot, tightly edited, sharply acted, the film represents a rare example of craftsmanship working to produce a deeply moving piece of history."

- Stephen Farber, The Hollywood Reporter

"Selma is vital correspondence, filmmaking lived on the streets where brutal facts were ignored then reported, and now snatched back from history to sustain a spirit few films can or will possess. It is stunning humanistic cinema on a mainstream scale... It has inventiveness, urgency, humor, and most of all emotion that draws effortless parallels rather than leaving its lesson up on the screen."

- Charlie Schmidlin, The Playlist

"DuVernay’s razor-sharp portrait of the Civil Rights movement — and Dr. King himself — at a critical crossroads is as politically astute as it is psychologically acute, giving us a human-scale King whose indomitable public face belies currents of weariness and self-doubt."

- Scott Foundas, Variety

"Selma is one of the best American films of the year — and indeed perhaps the best — precisely because it does not simply show what Dr. King did for America in his day; it also wonders explicitly what we have left undone for America in ours."

- James Rocchi, TheWrap

"More often than not ... "Selma" focuses on the one thing we don't expect in a movie about Martin Luther King Jr. - his doubts - and Oyelowo comes through with a deeply felt and quite brilliant performance."

- Ty Burr, Boston Globe

"Working from a script by Paul Webb and aided by stark, beautiful, sometimes startlingly realistic cinematography by Bradford Young, DuVernay has delivered a powerful and moving portrait of Martin Luther King Jr. "

- Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times

"Selma is gripping, inspiring and sometimes terrifying historical drama, loaded with specific detail, that brings a turning point of the civil rights movement back from black-and-white obscurity to present-tense urgency. "

- Andrew O'Hehir, Salon

"Even if you think you know what’s coming, Selma hums with suspense and surprise. Packed with incident and overflowing with fascinating characters, it is a triumph of efficient, emphatic cinematic storytelling. And much more than that, of course. "

- A.O. Scott, The New York Times

"DuVernay has done a great service with Selma. Not only has she made one of the most powerful films of the year, she's given us a necessary reminder of what King did for this country...and how much is left to be done. "